#aquillon

[syrospit]

i tried to warm you all about me posting my crack ship now endure and special thanks to @heretical-cogitations who has to put up with my madness

okay fyi this is just a painting practice based off of joseph lorusso’s work “when i’m with you” from 2021 and it’s just to get myself back into actually liking my art don’t take this seriously

[e3n-ethan]

Ah fuck. I just came to a realization.

What Argel Tal found dislikable and not admirable about the custodes was the fact that they were out of sync, which to him meant they weren’t true brothers.

By the end of The First Heretic, Argel Tal isn’t in sync with the other Gal Vorbek. They’re individuals that don’t fit together anymore. He *is* in sync with Aquillon. Aquillon is his true brother where the other chosen of the gods aren’t. Even Khârn doesn’t realize this.

Through killing Aquillon, Argel Tal would kill his last true brother. This is what sealed his fate more than any of his other actions. This is what made him a sinner.

Argel Tal’s true sin isn’t betraying the emperor, or letting a daemon in. Argel Tal’s sin is the oldest sin mankind committed, the creation of Drach’nyen. Argel Tal’s sin is the sin of fratricide.

[carminanoctis]

I didn't just read a few hundred pages waiting for the duel between Argel Tal and Aquillon only for the author to drop this line in the last 4 pages:

[ixiino]

Lorgar had enough. I went wild with the tattoos

[e3n-ethan]

I just… realized something really funny about the oculi imperator. Never really thought about it. But Argel Tal made a comment about Aquillon that opened my eyes. He commented that Aquillon had something “undeniably adolescent” about him. Aquillon mentions that Amon taught and trained him and Ven. Amon is maybe like slightly older than the primarchs. He was there during their creation but from the way Valdor and Ra treat him, and the way he acts, I think he’s their junior. According to the codex custodes take ages to mature. Ven had 27 names. Seeing as the first few names all relate to birth, place of birth, halls of training, family background etc that means he likely did maybe… ten actual deeds as an adult that were worth commemorating?

Which leads me to the realization that the oculi imperator are the custodes equivalent of young adults.

Which also makes me realize why they were somewhat dumb when it came to Lorgar, and why they are so easily baited in debates with the Word Bearers. They’re the custodes equivalent of fucking 19 year olds.

[e3n-ethan]

Something I find really funny is how quickly Aquillon always beats Argel Tal. Like yes, custodes are stronger than space marines but not by that much, normally. For context, they’re generally as much stronger than Astartes as Astartes are to humans, according to their Codex, but with more internal variance because custodes generally have the most internal variance (Valdor fought Alpharius on pretty equal terms in Alpharius’ Primarch novel, even if Alpharius tried to count that as his win bc “Valdor wore armor and I didn’t!!!1!1!1!!2!1!”).

In A Thousand Sons, a sister of silence (unaugmented human) kept in a fight really long against Phosis T’Kar. The Eversor and Koyne, who, tbf, are enhanced, took out a SoH together. Ofc, sometimes Astartes win pretty decisively against custodes as well (The Outcast Dead), and five Astartes can take a custodes (Garro), same way five humans can also sometimes take down an entire squad of space marines (Pandorax, tho tbf those were catachans) because at the end of the day we’re all reliant on the roll of the dice.

But Argel Tal consistently and solely losing against Aquillon in a single stroke means either that Aquillon was particularly gifted (which tbf, he’s Amon Tauromachian’s kid, so maybe), or that Argel Tal is just. Really really bad.